At the start of 2020, and towards the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the virus’s effects were first starting to be felt on a truly global scale, bookings plummeted across the world as countries and regions shut their borders and enforced strict lockdowns, closing businesses and restricting movement.

Now though, with many countries partly or fully emerging from lockdown and the effects of vastly different government responses to the crisis becoming clear, the picture is a much more varied one. Hotels in some countries are gradually approaching ‘normal’ booking volumes; hotels in others bounced back to full occupancy much faster, but are now suffering under second lockdowns; in others, hotels are yet to show any signs of meaningful recovery at all. As per studies the share of revenue from mobile has doubled since the beginning of 2020 in one of the clearest examples of how COVID-19 has impacted the consumer behaviour. The travel patterns are seeing a major shift, travellers are now looking for private spaces and limited interaction with staff to utilize services. Boutique properties and especially B&B, Vacation stays are gaining popularity as they offer private spaces, have limited traffic and are generally run with utmost care.

There is no doubt that OTA’s are extremely popular and B&B need to be listed on every possible OTA but now customers are using these OTA listings as an index and trying to reach B&B directly through their online websites, therefore, it is imperative that B&B have their own website and offer a website booking engine, this real-time technology hooked upto the website is a critical tool for small hotels and B&B, because it has the potential not only to help guests make direct reservations from the website but also easily convert lookers into bookers while saving a lot of money in terms of OTA commissions.

Moreover, a responsive web booking engine integrated with a hotel property management system provides these properties a seamless way to market and upsell their hotel packages and services and at the same time ensure customers are provided all essential details in terms of safety, sanitization, contactless operations and privacy. With the help of technology, guests may know exactly what to expect when they are present at your property and this will increase not only guest loyalty but revenue also.

Considering B&B’s requirements, we have added lots of new features to our mycloud website booking engine to help small bed and breakfast hotels. Check out these features explained in detail.

New Design

More guests are searching and booking on mobile than ever before. We have customized the complete look and feel of the web booking engine to immediately boost your mobile performance and guest satisfaction with an easy three-step checkout experience.

Fast-Selling Rooms

Since small bed & breakfast hotels have limited inventory, this new modification will now display fast-selling rooms and the number of rooms available for sale, in-case the availability is more than 3 rooms, the availability message is not displayed.

Discounted and special Rate

Highlight BAR (best available rate) rates and special discounts with clearly marking discounted amount. Now allow your guests to save time & money by automating complex rate-checking tasks. Protect your brand and your direct website by making sure you always show guests the best rate.

Room Cart

The new web booking engine now allows guests to book multiple dates or multiple rooms with different pricings and pax. With this newly introduced room cart feature, guests can see the number of selected rooms and Net payable before proceeding to confirm a reservation, even make changes by a single click.

Display Hotel and Room Images

You know the old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, that could hold true when it comes to impressing your guests with a visual experience of where they are going to stay and what they will be getting. When you use the mycloud booking engine for your website you can add exciting photos, videos and provide detailed amenities list of your room and hotel. This will improve the guest experience and help guests to instantly book your hotel.

Digital Online Payment

Offer your guests a completely secure way of making online payments, the payment solution is PCI compliant, offers 128 bit encryption. You can and also send SSL encrypted payment link to guests along with confirmation email and allow guests to make contactless payments via different ways including all credit cards, net banking, direct transfer, debit cards, Wallets, etc.

The system offers various other features like completely contactless check-in, billing, services ordering, F&B menus, and check-out all this from convenience of their phones and that too without downloading any app. System will not only help manage guests better but also offer a great and secure guest experience with automated targeting and personalized experiences across the entire booking and stay journey.

Want to know more about our new web booking engine? Schedule a free demo with our experts or register a free trial to play and see how a responsive booking engine can help your business.

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About The Author

Deepak Chauhan

Deepak Chauhan is responsible for marketing and positioning of “mycloud” platform and is a veteran in the hotel software industry with over 25 years’ experience giving him a strong understanding of the product requirements in the industry. He has very rare mix of working in operations of various hotels and chains for over 10 years and then co-founding a software product and service company, servicing 5 star hotels and chains for 14 years.

Deepak has led the development and marketing of cloud based hospitality systems to meet the specific, business objectives of small and mid-size properties across the globe and has worked closely with a diverse group of hoteliers and hotel technology vendors.